“You’re right,” he said, breathing quickly. “I promised. I’ll keep my promise.” Then, vehemently: “Jean, why won’t you let me take you home? I could put the car right in ten minutes. Come home!” There was unmistakable appeal in his tones. It was obvious he hated the task to which he had set himself, although he had no intention of yielding. She stared at him doubtfully. “Will you? Will you take me home, Geoffrey?... Or”--bitterly--“is this only another trap?” “I’ll take you home--at once, _now_--if you’ll promise to be my wife. Jean, it’s better than waiting till to-morrow--till circumstances _force_ you into it!” he urged. She was silent, thinking rapidly. That sudden break in Burke’s control, when for a moment she had feared his promise would not hold him, had warned her to put an end to the scene--if only temporarily--as quickly as possible. “You are very trusting,” she said, forcing herself to speak lightly. “How do you know that I shall not give you the pledge you ask merely in order to get home--and then decline to keep it? I think”--reflectively--“I should be quite justified in the circumstances.” He smiled a little and shook his head. “No,” he said quietly. “I’m not afraid of that. If you give me your word, I know you’ll keep it. You wouldn’t be--you--if you could do otherwise.” For a moment, Jean was tempted, fiercely tempted to take his blind belief in her and use it to extricate herself from the position into which he had thrust her. As she herself had said, the circumstances were such as almost to justify her. Yet something within her, something that was an integral part of her whole nature, rebelled against the idea of giving a promise which, from the moment that she made it, she would have no smallest intention of keeping. It would be like the breaking of a prisoner’s given parole--equally mean and dishonourable. With a little mental shrug she dismissed the idea and the brief temptation. She must find some other way, some other road to safety. If only he would leave her alone, leave her just long enough for her to make a rush for it--out of the house into that wide wilderness of mist-wrapped moor! It would be a virtually hopeless task to find her way to any village or to the farmstead, three miles away, of which Burke had spoken. She knew that. Even moorwise folk not infrequently entirely lost their bearings in a Dartmoor mist, and, as far as she herself was concerned, she had not the remotest idea in which direction the nearest habitation lay. It would be a hazardous experiment--fraught with danger. But danger was preferable to the dreadful safety of the bungalow.